Generosity

Deuteronomy 15: 1-18

‘Living generously’ is a theme that underlies both our passage from Deuteronomy today and our gospel reading (Matthew 81: 21-35). I will focus on the Deuteronomy reading. The passage in Deuteronomy that gives us instructions on three issues: poverty, debt and slavery – pretty big issues I think you will agree. It can be summarised as: ‘If you are rich: live generously’.

But, before turning to see what the passage has to say about that there are two things the passage might also be: a set of instructions for politicians about the way that society should be run and advice for people in poverty, debt or slavery about how to cope with their situation or get themselves out of it.

So does the passage give politicians any instructions about poverty, debt and slavery? Firstly the passage does suggest that poverty and slavery (if not debt) are bad things; that in an ideal world there would be no poverty and slavery. But it also accepts that debt, poverty and slavery are inevitable, at least in the here and now.

Poverty is clearly a bad thing and verse 4 promises that at some point ‘There will be no more among you for the Lord your God will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess.’ But only seven verses later (verse 11) it says ‘the poor will never cease out of the land’. Jesus says something similar to this when he says to Judas after Mary has poured a bottle of perfume over his feet, ‘You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.’

Perhaps we should note that Jesus, in his first sermon as reported by Luke, says that he has come to preach good news to the poor; but he doesn’t say he has come to abolish poverty. In his sermon on the plain he proclaims ‘Blessed are the poor’ implying that, if poverty is a bad thing, it has some compensations.

Now you might think that debt, like poverty, is a bad thing and that therefore all debts should be cancelled. But of course if you did that there would be chaos. Today’s society depends on debt but that is not all bad. There is good lending and bad lending. Think mortgages here. Mortgages are debts and in today’s society mortgages provide people with housing which is under their control and not that of private landlords. There is surely some value in mortgages.

In this passage we hear (verse 6) that God will bless the Israelites by giving them the capacity to ‘lend money to many’ and at verse 8 the rich are commanded to ‘open your hand to your poor brother and lend him sufficient for his need’. The surprising thing here is that the instruction is to lend to the poor not give them stuff. Incidentally here is a lesson relevant to the rapid growth of Church-run food banks. The authors of Deuteronomy clearly don’t think debt per se is a bad thing. If some people are lending some people will be borrowing.

And you also might think that slavery, like poverty and debt, is a bad thing and we should abolish all forms of it. Well it’s easy to say that now but for much of the time that the books of the Bible refer to slavery was a given. This passage in Deuteronomy is about slavery that was a consequence of debt that could not be paid. This sort of slavery gave slaves some security that that their basic needs of food, water, clothes and shelter would be met.

The writers of the Bible clearly do not think slavery is particularly bad. Paul’s famous verse in his letter to the Galatians: ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’, doesn’t mean that he condemns slavery per se. In fact when he writes to his friend Philemon about Philemon’s slave Onesimus he does not tell his friend to release Onesimus: quite the contrary Paul gives a strong hint or two that he would very much like to have Philemon as his slave. Our page in Deuteronomy also takes slavery for granted.

Now in saying all this I am not saying that the writers of Deuteronomy (and indeed Jesus and Paul) are entirely accepting of the status quo. Far from it!. I would suggest, for example, that this passage proposes that society should be organised in quite a different way from the way it is today. But still this passage is not primarily addressed to politicians.

The second thing this passage is not, and even more obviously, is that it’s not a set of instructions about what to do when you yourself are poor, in debt or a slave.
Nowhere in the passage does it say: ‘You must not get into poverty.’ That would have been as absurd then as it is now nowadays to talk about the undeserving poor. No-one deliberately makes themselves poor. In a passing reference the passage does say that when God blesses the Israelites they ‘shall not borrow’. But this isn’t saying you must not borrow – like you shall not kill, steal, lie, etc.

The passage doesn’t even say you must not make yourself a slave. Slavery – in this case selling oneself into the ownership of someone with more land and/or livestock - was a rational economic decision which many people took when facing, say, the failure of their crops.

It is also I think noteworthy that this passage does not tell the poor, debtors or slaves whether they are just to accept their lot or resist their condition. Other passages in the scriptures bear upon that issue.

So if this passage is not primarily a set of instructions to politicians about what to do about poverty, debt or slavery or what to do when you are poor, a debtor or a slave, who is it addressed to and what is it about? Well I think it’s mainly about what to do when you when you have people owing money to you, when you see poor people around about you and when you are a slave owner. You can see it a set of instructions for those who enough money to give away or lend or to buy slaves. These instructions can be summarised as ‘Be generous!’.

Now you might think you don’t have enough money to lend people any or give much of it away, and certainly you might think you don’t have slaves. Or you might think that the problems of poverty, debt and slavery cannot simply be solved by people just being generous but I think it is worth investigating how this principle of living generously might apply to us and where it could take us.

Take slave-owning to start with. Now it is easy I think to think that slavery has been abolished. That no one in today’s society is a slave – we are all free. So instructions about slave owning are surely irrelevant?

But is this really the case? Many of us do have economic power over other people’s lives. The most obvious case being that many of us are bosses where we work – with power to dictate (at least to some extent) what those people who work for us do. This power is generally given to us by the organisation we work for but sometimes through the wealth we have accrued. Be generous is something worth thinking about if you employ people. Be generous in how much you pay them and how much time off you give them.

Even if we are not direct employers – most of rely on lots of other people to do some basic things for us – cleaning (where we live and work and the places in between), removing our rubbish, growing and cooking (nowadays called processing) our food, repairing our cars, our bikes, our clothes, our houses, etc. Some of these things are often very skilled and the people who do these things for us may be paid for rather than coerced into doing so but these verses surely tell us how to treat those people we depend on for our basic needs. Be generous next time that shop assistant short changes you. Be generous when the cleaner accidentally breaks your favourite ornament.

Our passage in Deuteronomy (verse 14) says we should be generous to our slaves: ‘Supply them liberally from your threshing floor; i.e. grain for making bread. So you should give them the means to live. But more than that ‘Supply them liberally from your wine press’ i.e. you should give them more than just the basics but also the means of celebration. We should remember this verse in particular when we come to share bread and wine at our Communion today.

But it’s not just slaves or people who work for us, and are therefore most likely to be poorer than us, that we are to be generous to: we are also to be generous to everyone who is poor.

Next debt. We might think we don’t have the capacity to lend people money so, like the instructions about slavery, these instructions about being generous to debtors surely cannot be relevant to us? We know, for sure, that debt is a problem in modern society but surely we are not the problem; we are not lending people money?

Firstly some of us do lend money to others at times and the instruction here to lend ungrudgingly, as if you are not likely to get the money back, is surely worth considering. Secondly we are caught up in a society which, as I said earlier, depends on borrowing and lending for its existence. If we have a bank account that is in credit we are in effect lending money to our neighbour who has an overdraft. In as much as we benefit from that society we collude in all this borrowing and lending. Bankers have got a bad name recently because they seem to have mismanaged this borrowing and lending done on our behalf and incidentally we might think of being more generous in our attitude to them.

We might also be thinking that the system proposed in this passage– of releasing people from their debts every seven years – could not possibly work in modern society. In fact I am dubious that it could have worked in the society to which the writers Deuteronomy were writing.

I don’t really know where this principle of being more generous to those we lend money to would take us – certainly to the relief of the debts of developing countries as in the successful Jubilee 2000 campaign – but I am certain that it is an important principle. Jesus in the parable that we heard as our gospel reading today underlines this. Perhaps Jesus is saying here that since God forgives our big debts so we should be forgive the little debts of others.

And finally poverty. The writers of Deuteronomy are surely being ironic when they say (verse 7): ‘If there is among you a poor man, one of your brethren, in any of your towns within your land which the Lord your God gives you then..’. Those who first heard these words would surely have said ‘‘If there is a poor man’, well of course there are poor people amongst us, but so what?’ The authors’ response is to say ‘You shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient to his need, whatever it might be’. And moreover to ‘Give to him freely and your heart should not be grudging’.

The emphasis here is on the responsibility and attitude of the giver (or rather the lender) not the plight of the person given to. The passage is not saying: first identify the really poor around you – the deserving poor – and give them enough to live on. It’s saying, be generous in your giving/lending to those in need whatever their needs. It is, of course, easier for us to give people things that we think that they need but here we are enjoined to give to people in relation to their need not what we think of as their need.

So to summarise: be generous to those who work for you, both directly and indirectly, to those who you lend money (both directly and indirectly) and to those who are poor and not just the deserving poor. But why? Our passage from Deuteronomy makes this clear: because the Lord our God has been and will be generous to us. We remember this in the Communion meal we are about to share. We will remember that God has generously given us his son and Jesus has generously given of himself – his body and his blood in which we all share. If God is generous then clearly we, who are made in his image, should be generous as well.

Unity

12th May 2013, St Matthew’s, Reading: John 17: 20-26

Here is a conversation I heard recently – anonymised to protect the reputation of those concerned and ever so slightly embellished.

James: I was wondering, Jim, why you left St Justice down the road and joined St Compassion’s.

Jim: Well, James, St Justices’ has nice stained glass windows but I just couldn’t get on with the congregation there.

James: Oh, and why was that?

Jim: Well they are very nice people at St Justice’s but their services are very odd.

James: In what way?

Jim: Well the men all wear ties and the women all wear hats for a start. And for another thing they just can’t seem to see other people’s point of view.

James: Over important issues?

Jim: Oh yes : really important issues such as the synoptic question.

James: Oh, we’re not like that at St Compassion’s. We’re awfully tolerant of one-another’s views here and we don’t care what we wear.

Jim: Tolerance: hmph! That’s called being wishy-washy at St Justice’s.

James: Well here at St Compassion’s we call that being bigoted. We feel that churches like St Justice’; should be expelled from the Church of England.



So: was it right for Jim to leave St Justice’s for St Compassion’s? Well of course it is OK, at times, to change churches. But then was it right for Jim to criticise St Justice’s when he joined St Compassion’s. That seems more doubtful. Was James being over-hasty in describing the congregation at St Justice’s as bigoted? Wasn’t he being a tad intolerant himself? Of course we don’t know all the full facts of the situation but even so this conversation feels wrong somehow. It is surely not how Christians should behave.

The conversation illustrates the way Christians can be intolerant of one another but today’s sermon is not about tolerance, it’s about unity. Unity is much bigger, much more important than tolerance of one another’s views. When we all declare, as we do at our communion service: ‘Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread, ‘we are – of course -saying something much more important that that we agree over the synoptic question or whether we tolerate one over’s different views over that question.

The synoptic question is by the way the question of which of the three synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, was written first, and much ink has been spilled over it. Of course I am using the synoptic question as a ludicrous example of a question over which Christians disagree. For the synoptic question: you can substitute currently controversial questions around women bishops, gay marriage, etc. or old questions like transubstantiation, substitionory atonement, evolution v special creation etc. etc. etc.

And so to the main subject of this sermon: unity. In this sermon I want to pose three questions: the answer to the first is fairl long but to the second and third is quite short.

First: What is unity but also what is it not?

Secondly: Is diversity disunity?

And thirdly: What is the relationship between unity and community?

I’ll try and answer these questions before coming back to the conversation that I began with and to explore whether thinking more about what we mean by unity might affect how we talk to, and about, other Christians.

So my first big question: What is unity and what is it not?

Unity is one of those things we as Christians aspire to and pray regularly for. We are right to do so. Jesus prays for unity in the reading from John’s gospel that we have just heard. In that reading John is recounting a prayer that Jesus prayed at the Last Supper. But we might not be clear about what unity is precisely.

Firstly and most importantly unity for Christians is unity with God and not just, or even mainly, unity between Christians. So for Christians unity has both a horizontal and a vertical dimension. The great promise of Jesus, in his sermon to the disciples at the Last Supper, is that we can have unity with God the Father though him and though the Holy Spirit – the vertical dimension – but also that because of this unity with God we can hope for unity with one another - the horizontal dimension. If you only remember one thing from this sermon today please remember that unity with God is more important for us than unity with one another, because it is impossible to have true and abiding unity with one another unless this is grounded in our relationship with God.

Secondly unity has two aspects: oneness and togetherness. We are unified when we are one body rather than two, three or more different bodies. To become one body we need to come together rather than move apart from one another. For example we are one body when we come together in one place, at one moment in time, to share in one bread. Jesus, in our reading, prays for both oneness and togetherness. In Chapter 17 verse 21 he prays for oneness – he prays that those who believe in him ‘may all be one’ But in verse 24 he prays for togetherness: that ‘they (the disciples)…may be with me (Jesus) where I am’. It is clearly possible for a group of people to be one but not together or together and not one. Both oneness and togetherness are important for unity.

Thirdly unity is primarily a gift to be prayed for rather than something we can make happen. At the Last Supper, Jesus prays to his Father for the gift of unity for his disciples – and not just the disciples – those ‘who believe in me though their word’. The world often sees unity as something that can be got by our own efforts. It’s often assumed that we can achieve unity if we work hard enough for it. And of course we are not powerless in this regard. We can, to a degree, do things to increase our chances, if you like, of unity with God and one another. We can pray for a start and we can endeavour to be united with our fellow Christians. But at the end of the day it is God who gives us unity.

All of this doesn’t really get to the heart of the question of what unity really is. One obvious thing it might be is love. So is it ‘just’ the love of God for us, us for God and us for one another? That there is a clear connection between love and unity is perhaps obvious. In verse 23 Jesus prays to his Father that he may be one with the disciples and that they may become perfectly one with one another, ‘so that the world may know that thou has sent me and hast loved them’. But this verse indicates that Jesus is praying for unity so that the Father’s love might be demonstrated, so clearly unity is a prerequisite for that demonstration of love and not the same thing.

It is perhaps easier to say what unity is not rather than what it is. And one thing it clearly isn’t is uniformity of belief or practice. Of course there is a relationship between unity and belief? At verse 20 Jesus makes it clear that he is praying for unity for those ‘who believe in me through the disciples’ word’. But what does he mean by ‘believe in me’ precisely?

Clearly ‘believing in Jesus’ is much more than just believing that he existed or that he died on a cross or even that he rose from the dead. It’s clearly doesn’t really matter what we believe in relation to the synoptic question but does it matter what we believe about transubstantiation, substitutionary atonement, etc? Well I don’t think so, but some might. (I am afraid I am not going to explain what transubstantiation and substitutionary atonement are today even if I could) I think when Jesus talks about people who believe in me he means just that. It’s deliberately vague. But in your heart of hearts I think you know whether you believe in Jesus or not.

I am sorry if that makes some people here feel uncomfortable. It would make me feel uncomfortable at certain points in my life when I doubt whether I really believe in Jesus or not. But I know there are times when I really do believe in him and I have come to believe that you can’t make yourself belief things that you don’t. Just as I cannot make myself belief that 1 + 1 = 3 I cannot make myself believe in Jesus. Belief, like unity, is, I believe, a gift. Sorry that was a bit of an aside.

Back to unity and to say that just as tolerance isn’t unity, unity is much more than uniformity of belief – correct or otherwise.

And so to my smaller and easier to answer second question: Is diversity disunity? Putting the question like that makes the answer obvious. When Jesus prays for his disciples to be one he isn’t praying for them to be all the same – in beliefs or practices or in anything else. Jesus’ relationship with each one of us is very different and so unity can embrace diversity.

The best model we have here is the Trinity. God is one but within that oneness there is diversity: the three persons of the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are different persons with different relationships one with another. But within the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together are one.

My third question is: What is the relationship between unity and community? You’ll notice unity forms part of the word community. Firstly it’s worth pointing out that Jesus’ prayer, at the Last Suppers, is for all the disciples –and not just for them – also those who believe in him through the disciples. Here Jesus is not talking to or praying for one particular disciple.

When he prays that ‘they may also be in us’ he means that he wants them collectively to be united with him and his Father not just individually. Unity – even in the vertical dimension – can never be a matter of just my relationship with God but our relationships with God. We live in such an individualistic age that we cannot very easily see how we collectively can have a relationship with God that is distinct from our individual relationships (and I am not denying that those are important too). Obviously in the horizontal dimension unity needs at least two people to make any sense at all. And Jesus here isn’t just talking about individual relationships he’s asking for unity for the whole fledgling community of the church

But secondly the fact that the unity that Jesus prays for has to be visible enough to challenge the world to believe in him shows us that what he asking for is not just a spiritual union but a unity that can be seen in both its horizontal and vertical dimensions. In verse 21, for example, Jesus prays for unity ‘so that the world may believe that thou has sent me’ So Jesus is praying for a unity that can be seen by others. And now that Jesus has ascended into heaven this surely primarily means the way that Christians behave towards one another. Unity is, then, made concrete in community. Without community we might say we are united but without actions our words will be just words.

So finally even if we haven’t exactly pinned down what unity is, perhaps we know it when we see it.

Moreover I hope I have said enough to show you that unity is not just tolerance of different beliefs and certainly not just uniformity of belief. But still unity, belief and tolerance are connected so how might reflecting on unity have helped James and Jim in their conversation about changing churches? It does seem to me important that Jesus’ desire for unity amongst his disciples should actually mean something practical particularly – but of course, not just - when as Christians we are talking about other Christians. I am not saying that I am at all perfect in this regard. In fact I am regretting saying something really bad about someone only this week but here is a way the conversation between James and Jim might have been better.



James: I was wondering, Jim, why you left St Justice down the road and joined St Compassion’s

Jim: Well, James, St Justices’ has nice stained glass windows but I was looking for something different.

James: Oh, and why was that?

Jim: Well they are very nice people at St Justices’ but they have ways of worshipping and views that are different to mine.

James: Oh well, welcome to St Compassion’s. We hope you will find your home amongst us. But I feel we at St Compassions should do more with the people at St Justice’s,

The tempation of security

Sermon on Matthew 4: 1-11

 

 

This is a sermon adapted from a sermon preached in the 1960s by Alan Robson and reprinted in it’s entirely in the October 2010 edition of Minsters-at- Work. I have shortened it somewhat and edited it slightly.

 

 

In our reading today ‘Jesus is in the wilderness, face to face with the Devil. God is absent. On the cross the situation is the same. Jesus is face to face with the powers of evil – alone. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus calls out.

  

The twice repeated taunt of the Devil in the wilderness: “If thou be the son of God..,” is echoed by those who jeered at him on Calvary: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

  

In the third temptation the Devil, taking Jesus onto a high mountain, shows him all the kingdoms of the world and promises, “All these things will I give you if you fall down and worship me.” Jesus refuses.

  

Similarly, in the story of the crucifixion, Jesus never compromises with the forces of evil. They have their way and he dies. But the story ends with Jesus – again on a high mountain – saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given me.”

  

If it is right to think that the temptation story is a commentary on the Easter story then it must throw light on the meaning of the death and exaltation of Jesus – and on its significance for us. It must reveal what it is about Jesus that makes him good news for us. The details of the temptation story are strikingly peculiar:

• The dialogue between Jesus and the Devil.
• The suggestion of turning stones into bread.
• The picture of Jesus and the Devil standing together on the pinnacle of the Temple.
• The absurd notion that from the mountain-top they could see all the kingdoms of the earth. 

The story is highly imaginative, extravagant in its imagery; it is the stuff that dreams are made of. Yet the essence of it is clear enough. There are three temptations and they correspond to the basic needs we all recognise in our lives:

• I want bread – or economic security;
• I want protection from life’s dangers – like falling from the pinnacle of the Temple;
• I want to rule the world or, in more modest terms, I want to belong – to have power or status. 

Whether or not it is right in this way to find a particular significance in each of the three temptations matters little because in the end they all end up to one fundamental need – the need for security.

  

We are all looking for a life of security, but in our anxious pursuit of security, life itself is passing us by. It is the Devil who tempts us to look to ourselves and our security. God, in Jesus, calls us to forsake our security and get on with living. What the Devil promises in terms of bread, protection and status is only an illusion of security. The Devil’s promise is never fulfilled.

  

But we are called to live, as it were, in the wilderness, deprived of the usual comforts and securities which people crave. But when in that wilderness we turn to God we generally do so in the hope that he will provide just that kind of security that the Devil offers Jesus.

  

Note that, for the first two temptations at least, the Devil is not tempting Jesus to turn against God. He is tempting him to look to God for his personal security – to make use of God to fulfil his own needs. Jesus is in the wilderness; he is hungry and there is nothing to eat. “Go on” says the Devil, “You’re the Son of God; ask him, he will provide you with food”. Jesus is on the pinnacle of the Temple – a desperately dangerous place to be. “Go on” says the Devil, “You’re the Son of God; jump off and he will protect you from harm.”

  

But Jesus will not put God to the test. God sent Jesus into the wilderness not that Jesus might test him, but that he might test Jesus. In the wilderness Jesus is on his own, face to face with the Devil, face to face with temptation to seek his own security. God is nowhere about. God waits on the other side of the wilderness.

  

This is what the cross is all about. It is the ultimate wilderness experience. Jesus is on his own, face to face with the forces of evil. God is nowhere to be seen: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” God is found on the other side of the wilderness of suffering and death: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given me.”

  

We live at a time when there is widespread disillusionment, apathy, and sometimes open hostility towards Christianity. And when we’ve served up all the usual reasons for this – economic, sociological and so on - the fact remains that people have discovered that the gospel that the Church has regularly preached is not true.

  

The Church has often offered people ‘instant security’ of the kind it knows people desire and then they’ve discovered that it doesn’t work. Putting it bluntly the Church has been doing the work of the Devil: promising that if only people will turn to God all their problems will be resolved. The stones will become bread; they will be protected from all dangers; they will enjoy security and status. This isn’t true, and people know it isn’t true – but then it isn’t the Gospel either…

  

The Church’s real role is to lead people through the wilderness. This means that first we must accept the fact that life is often a wilderness – a wilderness of poverty, homelessness of alienation, estrangement, doubt, anxiety and despair in which not only the poor but the affluent find themselves.

  

Yet we also have a Gospel: we have a word of good news – for those who can take it. But it is a hard word: a stumbling block to some and foolishness to others. I talked about this word a few weeks back.

  

The word is that it is in losing our lives that we shall save them. It is in dying that we live. It is in forsaking all desire for security that we shall find our ultimate security. The Old Testament affirmation: ‘No man shall see God and live’ becomes in the New Testament, ‘No man shall see God except he die’. This, it seems, is the word we find in Jesus.

Revering the earth. A talk for Plough Sunday

This was originally given as a talk for children as well as adults so hence the greater interactions with the congregation than is perhaps usual. You will need a plant pot, a bag of compost and a crocus bulb for everyone present



Readings

From Wendell Berry (1969) The Long Legged House, Counterpoint.

"The most exemplary nature is that of topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experience, by the passage of seasons over it, growth rising out of it and returning to it, not by ambition or aggressiveness. It is enriched by all things that die and enter in it. It keeps the past, not as history or as memory but as richness, new possibility. Its fertility is always building up out of death into promise. Death is the bridge or the tunnel by which its past enters its future”



Isaiah 28: 23-29

[23] Give ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.

[24] Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? does he continually open and harrow his ground?

[25] When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cummin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and spelt as the border?

[26] For he is instructed aright; his God teaches him.

[27] Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cummin; but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cummin with a rod.

[28] Does one crush bread grain? No, he does not thresh it for ever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it.

[29] This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.





John 12: 24-25

[24] Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

[25] He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.







I’ve recently got interested in earth. It’s is amazing stuff and deserves to be thought about more, and treated with more reverence, than we generally do. People used to think that everything came from four elements: air, light, water but also earth and there is still truth in this idea. The Bible has a lot to say about where things come from which we need to take head of. Today we are celebrating Plough Sunday. It used to be celebrated by bringing in a plough to church for a blessing. Ploughs are used to till the earth. I couldn’t find a plough to bring to church today so instead I have brought some earth/compost for you to take away with you. Today I want to think more about earth and in particular what it symbolises.



So can you tell me what earth is made of?

Dead plants and animals; rock (ground up finely); living bacteria, earthworms

And why do we need earth or soil?

To grow things for food



So today I would like to give you a pot of earth.

First would you like to smell it? What does it smell like?

Second would you like to feel it? What does it feel like?



So why have I brought some earth along for you? Well today, as I said, we are celebrating Plough Sunday. It’s one of the Church’s services that are designed to celebrate the farming year which begins with ploughing, continues through sowing then growing and ends with harvesting. We, in the Church, still celebrate Harvest, but generally forget the other things that famers must do to produce food for us to eat.

Back in Victorian times Plough Sunday was observed on the First Sunday after Epiphany, on the 6th January. But its roots lie in a much older tradition associated with the first working day after the twelve days of Christmas, known as ‘Plough Monday’. In days when food was scarce in winter, the observance looked forward to the time of sowing with the promise of a harvest to come

Plough Sunday is celebrated in the middle of winter. But we’ve now past the longest night and we can look forward to spring. With spring comes new growth – in particular the new growth of crops: vegetable and fruit bearing plants, wheat and other plants producing grains for bread, etc. But also in spring there begins to be enough food around so that the farm animals can give birth to their young and we can have milk, eggs and of course meat to eat again.

After the Christmas break the farmers must get back to work again and their work begins with ploughing. Ploughs are one of the first tools than humans invented in the early days of agriculture – to get more food out of the earth than it would do otherwise. Ploughing is not unproblematic – like all human activity – it needs to be done carefully and sparingly otherwise the farmer risks damaging the earth as our reading from Isaiah reminds us. Isaiah, in the reading we just heard, warns us in parable like the ones Jesus told, that we need to respect the earth.

The Bible recognises the importance of earth and compost in many of its stories. Can you think of any stories in the Bible about earth?

The parable of the sower

What was the name of the first human being?

Adam.

Adam is a Hebrew word. Do you know what for?

Yes ‘earth’ or better still ‘compost;. And I don’t think this is just a coincidence. Names in the bible are always meaningful and God’s choice of Compost as the name of the first human is full of significance.

Furthermore Compost’s first task, his first job, in the Garden of Eden was to till it and keep it, i.e. prepare the ground for the plants in the garden to grow and bring forth fruit. Compost/Adam was, in other words a gardener, and his job was to prepare the soil for the plants but also look after the soil and care for it.

Gardens turn up a lot in the Bible – starting with the Garden of Eden. Then there’s the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is handed over to the Roman authorities, then there is the Garden where Jesus is laid in a tomb after his crucifixion and where Mary mistakes Jesus for the Gardener after his resurrection and finally the gardens within the new city promised in the Book of Revelation.

So earth and gardens feature in the garden quite a lot but earth, together with sunlight, air and water is required for the growth of seeds. Again there is lots in the Bible about seeds. Can you think of any stories in the Bible about seeds – particularly stories – parables - Jesus told?

The parable of the sower, the mustard seed [Mark 4: 30-32], the wheat and tares, the growing seed [Mark 4: 26-34]

Today I would like just to mention one but very important mini parable Jesus told. He said, according to John, ‘I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many’ [John 12: 24].

Now why does Jesus tell this story? Is a seed really dead? I have got some seeds here. Well they are crocus bulbs – a sort of seed. Do they look dead to you? They are all brown and have got a dry sort of skin. But if you were to break one of them open you would find a bit of green life. I won’t do this because it would kill the bulb.

And similarly with a grain of wheat. If you were to break that open you would find a bit of life inside – a tiny root and shoot – which will become bigger if and when the seed grows into a plant. So is it true that the seed must die if it is to grow into a plant? Well sort of. It is actually the adult plant – and not the seed that must die and become compost for the plant’s life to continue beyond the year.

A lot of people would like to point out that earth, despite appearances it is very much alive, with lots of good bacteria breaking down organic manner to be recycled for the benefit of plants, lots of earthworms, etc. to aerate the soil and contribute to this recycling. But what the bacteria are breaking down, and the worms helping to recycle, is dead stuff, dead plants and animals. This dead material is necessary so that other plants, and the animals that eat those plants, may live. Jesus is using this truth about seeds, the death of plants and earth to emphasise that he, and possibly we, must die so that others might live.

Jesus tells the story of the dying seed in conjunction with one of his sayings which are recorded in all four gospels “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal” according to John [John 12: 25]. Matthew’s version is, ’For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.’ [Matthew 16: 25]. Here he is saying that we must die if we are to find life for ourselves. This is a difficult saying, with lots of different layers of meaning to it. I have explained what I think it means in a previous sermon. But it’s one of Jesus’ most important sayings and one that we need to understand and take on board if we are to understand the good news of the Gospel.

It’s obviously not just about physical death but about letting go of our selfish desires. One of those desires is to dominate creation and this is where we come back to Isaiah and respect for earth. God wants us to have a right relationship, not only with him and our neighbour (loving them as ourselves), but also with creation as a whole. Only if we love creation can we cherish it and look after it properly. And w need to start with that seemingly unlovely substance earth.






I have got some bulbs for you to plant in your pots of earth – but I don’t want you to plant them until you get home. I want you to think about the earth for a bit longer.

Losing yourself

St Matthew's Church,  Oxford, 18th November 2012

Today I want to talk briefly about one of Jesus’ sayings that can be found in all four Gospels. Indeed two of the Gospel writers – Matthew and Luke – repeat it, as if to underline it. Here are four different versions of the saying.

Matthew 16:25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

Mark 8:35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Luke 17:33 Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.

John 12:25 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

I want to talk about this saying because in the 10.30 services at the moment we are thinking about change and loss. I said two weeks ago – in my sermon at the 10.30 service on the question: ‘Does God Change?’ - that life inevitably involves change and loss. I talked about the way God changes and loses things. One of the biggest things we can lose is our life. And God himself loses his life on the cross, to regain it at his resurrection. And at some point we must all lose our life – in the sense that we will all must die.

So at a basic level all four versions of this saying contain a comforting truth: that death is not the end – there is life after death. ‘Whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it’ says Jesus according to Mark.

But, of course, the saying says more than that because it contrasts trying to hold onto your life, implying that that is not a good thing, with not trying to hold onto it, suggesting that that is a good thing. And this is surely paradoxical. Having life is surely a good thing so why should loosing it also be a good thing.

Note that Luke and John seem to be trying – not entirely successfully - to make the saying more rational, less paradoxical than its version in Matthew and Mark.

The saying is always given, as if a maxim, a matter of fact, rather than say an instruction, and in the context of Jesus explaining what it means to follow him. Note the ‘For’ at the beginning of the Matthew and Mark versions’ ‘FOR whoever wants to save his life will lose it, etc. and in the Luke version I quoted Jesus has just been talking about his coming again and ‘For’ is definitely implied.

In Matthew and Mark, and on another occasion in Luke, the saying is given, in the context of Jesus having just talked about the need for the disciple to ‘take up his cross’ when following him. But whilst the saying is given in that context it is separate from the instruction. In none of the gospels does Jesus doesn’t give any explanation for why it is necessary to lose your life in order to find it.

A way round the paradox is to presuppose that the ‘life’ that to be lost in the first half of the maxim means life here on earth and the life to be gained in the second means life after death, life in heaven. In other words you have to lose A to gain B. But listen again to the version from Matthew

‘For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.’

Here it is not so clear that the life that Jesus is talking about is two different things. He seems to be saying that you have to lose A to gain A. And the crucial words here are ‘for me’. If you lose your life for me you will gain it: whether that life is life here on earth or life in heaven.

Another question about this saying is what does Jesus mean by lose? Does he literally mean you have to die to live? Is the loss that he is speaking of here just physical loss, i.e. death, or is it more than just physical life? Now life is surely not just breathing and having a pulse. Jesus is not just talking about the physical functioning of our lungs and heart or even our brain but our life in all its dimensions, life in all its fullness (cf. John 10: 10).

Our life is our identity, what we think of as our self – what we are good at and what we are not so good at, what we like about our self but also what we are ashamed of. When Jesus talks to Nicodemus about the necessity of being born again as a condition of entry to the kingdom of God he is surely re-phrasing the saying we have been thinking of and emphasising, in another way, the necessity of loosing ourselves – to start a new life. So the saying we are thinking of could be reformulated as:

‘For whoever wants to save his self will lose it, but whoever loses his self for me will find it.’

But our life is not just our identity it is our relationships - with our family and friends. And when we think about life in that sense then the saying becomes even harder surely. So when Jesus says, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14: 26) it’s even harder to accept. But Jesus here is surely not saying that it’s good to hate people, and in particular those who love us, but is connecting with the idea that we must loose ourselves to find ourselves.

There is even a sense which it is necessary to lose God – our conception of God at the very least – in order to find him.

Here is Simone Weil on the subject.

‘He [God] emptied himself of his divinity. We should empty ourselves of the false divinity with which we were born. Once we have understood we are nothing, the object of all our efforts is to become nothing. It is for this we suffer with resignation, it for this that we act, it is for this that we pray. May God grant me to become nothing. In so far as I become nothing, God loves himself though me.’

This idea that giving up this life is a necessary precondition for following Jesus, for finding God is a pervasive theme in the Gospels and in the rest of the New Testament. Here is just one example of Paul on the subject – from his letter to the Philppians (3. 8) ‘For his [Christ’s] sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.’

This is such a big issue that it is difficult to do it justice in a short sermon. It connects up with other big gospel themes such as sacrifice being part and parcel of love. It’s also hard to summarise. Perhaps all that can be done is let the words speak for themselves.

Christmas newsletters

Gospel reading: Luke 2: 1-20


This year we hadn’t had, until yesterday, a single round-robin Christmas letter. Perhaps they are going out of fashion like Christmas cards. But I also wonder whether you heard Lynne Truss’s attack upon on them on Radio 4’s Today Programme this year. That can’t have helped with their popularity. Of course people have been taking pot shots at such letters for years. But I like Christmas newsletters – even if I can’t seem to get round to writing one myself - and was glad when one arrived through our letter box. I’ll read it to you

The Star Inn
Bethlehem

Dear all

This year has been a busy, busy one for us Brewers, what with having had a glorious new kitchen for the inn and then Martha’s wedding to Joel in the autumn which we had here. See picture of the bridal party below and particularly note my new hat.

Joel is such nice boy and we all love him dearly. This year he’s been promoted to Chief Tax Officer for the local district - which has certainly brought its benefits if also some rather unkind remarks from the neighbours. And Martha is expecting a baby which is due in the spring. Simon – now 14 can you believe it? - is doing marvellously at school and has just got a distinction for his Grade 6 Timbrel and Loud Cymbals exam. Fluffy the ox had a new calf in the spring so it’s now Fluffy and Huffy in the stable.

We had a lovely family holiday on the Med in June with my sister and her family. Such a beautiful spot near Gaza! The sea was as blue and as warm at it could possibly be. And the food was glorious. There was a bit of bother, at the time, between the locals and the Roman authorities. Some people – near where we were staying – were being evicted from their homes to make way for some new barracks. But as you know we don’t like to get involved in other people’s business – and our holiday was hardly affected at all.

It’s been very hectic here in Bethlehem over the last month what with that irritating Census. Luckily, as many of you will remember, Tom and I were born here so no travelling for us and, to tell you the truth, it’s been quite a boon to trade in what is normally a quiet season. You have to pity some of the travellers. Last night we even had a pregnant woman and her husband arrive at our door – and the only room we had for them – was with Fluffy and Huffy in the stable. I didn’t think the oxen would mind.

The woman seemed very heavily pregnant to me. She might have even had the baby last night or early this morning as there seemed to be quite a lot of noise coming from the stable throughout the night. At one point some most unsavoury looking characters turned up who seemed to be friends of the woman or her husband. I didn’t like to pry and couldn’t really see what was going on from our bedroom window.

So a lot has happened this year – what with the new kitchen, Martha’s wedding, Joel’s promotion, Simon’s musical successes and our lovely holiday. Tom is still his old self, spending too much time on the business but I have my health so we have much to be grateful for. Happy Holidays and I hope that you and yours have a prosperous New Year.

Lots of love Ruth, Tom, Martha, Joel, Simon and Fluffy and Huffy



Now I don’t know about you but I enjoy such Christmas newsletters. They are better than just a card. For one thing they contain more news. And in some ways they are better than a present. They do I think, cost the writer more in time and effort than, say a box of chocolates. They deserve to be received as news and accepted as a gift with good grace.

Of course Christmas newsletters generally don’t cover the disasters and the failures of the year: only the good times and the successes. They can seem impersonal because the writer is writing for a lot of different people – both friendly and not so friendly. They can sometimes seem boastful, even competitive, as if the writer wants to prove to their readers that they and theirs are doing better than you and yours. And of course they are easy to take apart and make fun of as Lynne Truss did, ever so skilfully, on the Today Programme.

It is fairly easy to see that Ruth Brewer – the author of my Christmas news letter – lives in a bit of bubble where it’s only the affairs of those most closest to her that particularly matter to her. But aren’t we all a bit like that? More significantly of course, Ruth seems to have, rather foolishly, missed the significance of a big event on her doorstep because she ‘doesn’t like to pry’ and, as she says, she and her family ‘don’t get like to get involved in other people’s business’. But how many of us in similar circumstances, would have got out of bed, got dressed and ventured out into the cold, merely to see a stranger’s new-born baby?

The birth of God in the form of a apparently insignificant baby, surely shows us one thing related to Christmas newsletters. It is in the most human that God is to be found, in the seemingly ordinary but also extraordinary events in our lives such as the birth of a child. If Ruth had looked she might have found God in her stable that night. But she also might, in the spring, find God in the birth of her own grandchild. God was even present - had she but known it – in her joy at her glorious new kitchen.

Newsletters contain news and at Christmas we think of the good news of the birth of the Christ child. In the Christmas story it’s angels who bring this news, first to Mary, then to Joseph, before the event and then to the shepherds immediately afterwards. In our Gospel reading tonight we heard how the angel tells the shepherds, ‘Be not afraid, I bring you good news of great joy.’

Newsletters may seem to contain rather trivial news compared with the birth of the Saviour of us all. But remember it was only Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men and a few others who glimpsed the significance of the baby born in Bethlehem that night. The innkeeper and his wife presumably didn’t grasp the importance of the couple who they housing in their stable, or they would have found them better accommodation. News might sound trivial but sometimes seemingly trivial news has earth shattering consequences. We scoff at such news at our peril.

A Christmas newsletter not only contains news but is also a sort of gift. And at Christmas it is customary to exchange presents, to symbolise the gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense brought by the wise men, but also to remember that the baby in the manger was God’s gift to us. ‘For to you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour’: in other words the angel is saying to the shepherds that the baby has a tag on it saying ‘For you’.

A newsletter is a type of gift because the writer gives something of them self in writing it. In writing one the writer has to reveal what they have seen as significant over the last year, show what they truly care about, open them self up, if ever so slightly to acceptance or rejection. In laughing at the newsletter we reject that gift. And it is a gift which is ever-so precious.

Our offertory carol today is In the Bleak Midwinter. The last verse begins ‘What can I give him, poor as I am?’ and ends with the words ‘Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart’. In a way people give their heart in Christmas newsletters. They give us something which God gave us in the form of human baby. In allowing himself to be born as a baby in Bethlehem he gave himself to us – with the hope of acceptance but at the risk of rejection. Our giving of our heart to God, in return, may seem a strange thing to do but it is all he asks of us. It’s all he wants from us this Christmas.

Waiting for God

St Matthew’s, 16^th December 2012,
Readings: Zephaniah 3: 14-end; Philippians 4: 4-7 and Luke 3: 7-18.

My sermon today was billed as ‘Getting ready for God ‘ but actually I am going to be talking mostly about waiting for God.   Of course getting ready involves waiting.   But the two are not the same.   Getting ready involves activity.   Waiting does not.   I want to commend waiting to you.   I think it is much under-rated and I’ll try and explain why.   One reason for why I think waiting is good is that whilst God is, of course, a God who does things he is also a God who waits.   For example he waits for us to come to him.

But firstly why should we be thinking about getting ready for, or waiting for, God today particularly.   Well obviously we are in the season of Advent.   And at this time in the Church’s year we think about the coming of Christ into the world – both about the first time he came – as a helpless baby – and about our hope of his return – as a triumphant king.   It’s natural to feel that we need to get ready to celebrate his first coming and that we need to get ready for his second coming.   But what does getting ready involve?   Doesn’t  it mean that we have to do something?

I want to suggest – rather radically I hope - that we don’t need to do anything, to be ready for God to come,  that getting ready for God is not a question of preparing ourselves, making ourselves suitable for his arrival but of waiting.   Waiting is much more than just getting ready for an event, or a specific day, it about an attitude of mind.  Waiting does involve remembering what has happened and, indeed, hoping for what will be, but more importantly it is acceptance of what is.

Waiting has, I think, got a rather bad name.  What do you immediately think of when you hear the word waiting?   Perhaps ‘buses’ spring to mind.   Perhaps you are now imagining standing at a bus stop getting colder and colder and more and more frustrated at the non-appearance of your bus home.  Or perhaps you might-as its Advent – be thinking about waiting for a baby to arrive.

Of course we can wait for good things as well as bad and waiting is coloured by what we wait for.   Waiting for a baby – or even a party to celebrate a birth - is clearly different from waiting for a bus.   And then again waiting for the 25^th December to arrive is quite different for waiting for Christ’s second coming.

Waiting also depends on how we perceive what we wait for.  If we are a child we normally wait for Christmas with expectation and excitement at what is in store for us.   This is because we are hopeful that when it comes it will be associated with good things – namely presents.   If we are an adult and particularly if we have been infected with bar-humbugitis - we tend to wait for Christmas with indifference or even dread (dread perhaps at the likelihood of burnt or underdone roast potatoes and family rows).      

We do, when you think about it, quite a lot of waiting in our lives and as we get older we do even more.   Of course when we are very young – a baby – all there is to be done – besides eat and the consequence of eating - is wait, wait to be strong enough to walk, wait to learn how to talk, etc. etc.    It is no coincidence, I think, that we remember the incarnation at the celebration of Jesus’ birth, rather than say at the celebration of his baptism.   It’s as if we need to remember that God is as much present in the powerless baby – who waits for his life to unfold – as the man who is at his most powerful – at the height of his ministry.

As we get older we older we again become more and more dependent on other people and we spend more and more of our time waiting for them to do those things for us.  But we don’t have to be old to end up doing a lot of waiting,   Getting sick or losing your job also entail a lot of waiting. 

Waiting is something which is often thought of as somehow demeaning.  Babies and old people, sick people, unemployed people are sometimes thought at somehow less important than those who do stuff – particularly paid work.  Those who are active and busy are somehow seen as more important than those who are not so.     But this is surely not how God sees things.   Jesus the baby was surely no less important than Jesus the man.   Jesus the dying man – nailed to and therefore doing nothing on the cross – was no less important the Jesus the man rushing round preaching and healing.   Waiting is just as important as activity.

This is brought home to us by looking at the life of Jesus in a bit more detail and here I am summarising a book called the Stature of Waiting by an author called WH Vanstone.  As Vanstone points out, and as can easily be seen by even a quick reading of the Gospels, Jesus’ life falls into two halves: not equal halves in actual years or months but in halves in the way the Gospel writers write about it.   All four gospels expend many more words on the events of the last week of Jesus’ life than on any other week in his life.  For example Mark takes 10 chapters to describe Jesus’ life up to his entry into Jerusalem on a donkey seven days before Easter Sunday and six chapters on his last week.  

The first half of Jesus life can be characterised by preaching, healing, performing other miracles, changing peoples’ lives: in other words doing things.   The second and last half of Jesus life can be characterised by his being arrested, brought before the Jewish and Roman authorities, tried, tortured and finally killed, in other words having things done to him.   The transition between Jesus doing things and having things done to him can be seen to occur in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus is handed over to the Roman authorities, seemingly by Judas.  

In Mark’s gospel the transition is perhaps the most clear.   Mark’s description of Jesus ministry is almost breathless with words like immediately and phases like ‘that same day’ scattered throughout.   Jesus is almost always the subject of sentences.   Mark even describes scenes through Jesus’ eyes.   Jesus saw Simon and Andrew casting their nets and called them rather than Simon and Andrew were casting their nets when he called them.   Jesus found Peter, James and John asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane not that they fell asleep.  Mark’s description of Jesus’ ministry shows Jesus to be decisive, powerful, successful.   Jesus persuades, confounds, changes situations – even calms storms and casts out demons.   He changes peoples’ lives thought what he does.

But after he is handed over – or perhaps hands himself over – at the Garden of Gethsemane everything changes.   After that Jesus does hardly anything.   In Mark’s gospel Jesus is, after Gethsemane, the subject of only nine verbs.  One is the verb which reports him dying.   Four are negative in form or meaning, ‘He was silent’, ‘He answered nothing’, ‘He still answered nothing’ and when he was offered wine ‘He did not take it’.   The other four verbs are verbs of speaking but whereas previously Jesus’ words persuaded or confounded people, now his words affect no-one, change nothing.  

After Gethsemane Jesus is no longer the subject of sentences he is the object.  He is handed over from one authority to another, is dressed by others, even fed by others, or at least given wine.  It is as if he has reverted to being a helpless baby.   Not, this time, a baby that was cherished by his parents and worshipped by shepherds and wise men.   But helpless like a baby nevertheless.   But note that in this helpless inactivity Jesus accomplishes his greatest triumph, the rescue of us all, and not just the people who came into contact with him.   But in this he had to wait, do nothing, he had to wait for God to act.  We can see in the events from Gethsemane to Easter morning Jesus waiting for God to come and God does come.   God comes to raise him from the dead.  

Note too that since Jesus is God incarnate it is as if God waits for God.   In and after the Garden of Gethsemane.  God waits for Jesus and Jesus waits for God.  This is why I think waiting is to be commended and especially when it comes to waiting for God.  If Jesus and God wait for each other we must too wait for God, as he indeed waits for us.

Perhaps I should end my sermon here but I’d like us to retrace our steps a bit.   Of course some waiting can involve activity.  Sometimes that activity can be fruitful.   When we wait at a bus stop we might usefully fill our time chatting to the other people waiting.   When we are waiting to have a baby we can rush around visiting people to share the good news – as of course Mary did when she was told by the angel Gabriel that she was to have a baby.   But note that waiting – by definition – means we cannot affect what we are waiting for.   However much we might like to, we cannot make the bus come any faster, nor – if we are a pregnant women – do anything to speed the baby’s birth.   There is no shame in this.  Our helplessness is not something to be pitied but to accept, and in the case of waiting for a baby, if not a bus, to rejoice in.   It would be good for many people if they could wait for buses without so much impatience, so much fruitless activity.

So it may be with much of life’s waiting.   Waiting, at its most basic, is acceptance of the inevitable and I think we need to learn this – or at least this is something I need to learn.   We can, like children do waiting for Christmas, wait impatiently for it all (what precisely?) to start.   Or we can like adults getting ready for Christmas, rush around preparing things rather wishing we had a bit more time before it (what precisely?) arrived. 

Alternatively we can try and adopt an attitude of mind which is one of acceptance – acceptance of own ultimate helplessness to change what will God will have it be.   This is not to say that we should not eschew bar-humbugitis and be as excited as we can be at the coming of Christmas, nor that we should do nothing by way of preparing for it.

And so finally to waiting for God.   What is this precisely?   I am only going to attempt to say what it is not.  And it’s not, I think, waiting for a particular day on which he arrived or will arrive.  I always find that first line of the well-known Advent carol ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’ slightly odd.   Firstly it sounds to me as if, in singing this, we think God won’t come unless we call upon him to do so and.  And secondly doesn’t calling him Emmanuel mean that he is with us already?   How can someone who is with us be called to come to us?  

We will – after this sermon be singing a well known Taize chant that begins: Wait for the Lord, His day is near.  Now this too could be taken to mean that we should wait for a future event – the Day of the Lord (as it’s referred to in our readings today) – but note that the chant doesn’t say ‘Wait for the Day of the Lord’  It says wait for the Lord.  The two are quite different.  

And so to summarise. When waiting for God we do not need to do anything.   He is already here.  He does not require us anything but to hand ourselves over to him.   Our example himself is Jesus himself who in the last days of his life waited for God.  If it is necessary for God to wait for God surely we should wait for him.